Before dressing the infant in the patchwork shirt with wishes for longevity and good fortune, the mother baked forty traditional loaves and bathed her child in a tub of water with salt, earth, meat, wood from the juniper tree, sugar, and gold, to assure all earthly needs would be met. Earth symbolized plentiful crops and grazing, meat assured large herds, and juniper provided healing and protection, while sugar and gold represented sweetness of life and untold riches.